


One cut is all that it takes

by MDnata



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Episode: s09e03, Season/Series 09 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 07:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16445048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MDnata/pseuds/MDnata
Summary: Curiously though, this was the day his runaway puppy decided to finally pay him a visit. With a knife in his hand. Understandable, again, if not very surprising.





	One cut is all that it takes

**Author's Note:**

> There´s gonna be a character death, kind of.

# One cut is all that it takes

  
Negan didn´t like the darkness of his little cell but he wasn´t afraid of it. Silence, on the other hand, was another thing entirely. When it was silent, something was bound to happen, usually something bad.  
  
When it was silent, it meant you´d missed something. The memo that everybody else got that told them to run. The knife in the hand of somebody you knew that was waiting for its moment to bury itself in your back when you weren´t expecting it.  
  
Biters, as annoying as they were, made one hell of a racket whenever they wanted to move one direction or the other – being the dumbest, yet somehow the most usual reason of death in the neighborhood – so it was safe to say that when it was silent, you probably didn´t have to worry about _them _gnawing your nuts off any time soon.__  
  
No, when it was silent, humans were the main thing to watch out for.  
  
Negan hadn´t been careful enough and look what happened to him. Simon would have just killed him. Dwight too, had he had the guts to do it.  
  
But not Rick, apparently. No, his dear Ricky boy just had to play the part of the oh-so-merciful leader and lock him up for his crimes, because that was the right way to do these things nowadays.  
  
Negan wasn´t usually the self-destructive type, but at this point he´d rather just be dead already instead of having to sit there in the dark silence of his cell, just waiting for Rick to come and talk to him again. Michonne would be acceptable company too, but unlike Rick, she didn´t really like to talk to him. Understandable? Yes. Annoying? Fuck yes.  
  
Too bad for him, really.  
  
Rick being busy with that bridge of his, she was the only living person he´d seen in a long time, like it or not.  
  
And when she wasn´t there – silence was.  
  
Being a prisoner to people like Rick only made that silence worse. He´d seen so many sides of the man already, so many changes in attitude in so little time that he honestly had no idea what to expect from him now. Would he actually do what he said he was going to do or would he someday just decide to kill him in his cell, just for the hell of it?  
  
Negan didn´t know. And not knowing was… hard for him.  
  
And still, he kept thinking and wondering and waiting during those silent, god-damn-long periods between the visits. That was his life now.  
  
When he wasn´t thinking about the great mystery of Rick the Prick and the gang and when he wasn´t sleeping – and he slept a lot nowadays – he talked to Lucille.  
  
Not the bat, mind you. He wasn´t _that _crazy. Just to Lucille. Just about general stuff.__  
  
And just when the silence was bordering on getting too much for him.  
  
At the moment, too much was just behind the corner. Rick was still god knows where, Michonne had only dropped by to give him food – that he hadn´t eaten – and even sleep seemed to have gone on his merry way without him. The fucker.  
  
Curiously though, this was the day his runaway puppy decided to finally pay him a visit. With a knife in his hand. Understandable, again, if not very surprising.  
  
“Well look at what we have here”, he drawled in greeting, not even trying to hide his delight. “Yours is the last face I was expecting to see today.”  
  
“It´s evening, actually”, Daryl corrected him. “You enjoying your time-out?”  
  
“It´s gone a bit too long, don´t you think? I mean, yours only lasted a couple of days and you actually needed it.”  
  
“You didn´t?”  
  
Perhaps, but that was only for him to know, thank you very fucking much.  
  
“Did the Prick sent you? No, you two aren´t so close any more, are you. The Widow then, would be my next guess. Or maybe you´re doing this on your own.”  
  
“Maybe”, was the only answer given to him, grunted really.  
  
Negan couldn´t help but smile at the Darylness of it all. The smile just grew when the man unlocked the door to his cell and stepped in. By the time the door was locked again, had Negan too found his way on his feet.  
  
Daryl was clearly on a mission today – today, tonight, what-the-fuck-ever – but if he played his cards right, they´d both survive this encounter with all of their limbs attached.  
  
“You do know that your timing really sucks, right?” He asked, eyeing the knife in the man´s hand. “I´m kind of in the middle of a hunger strike here so, you know, you´re attacking a really, really hungry man right now. Which is to say I´m not at my best at the moment.”  
  
Daryl actually smiled at that. “Yeah, well join the club, man. The last time I had a good meal was before coming to Alexandria so yeah, deal with it. Besides, the weaker you are, the better. For this to work I mean.”  
  
For what to work? Killing him, sure, but… he had a hunch that wasn´t what the other meant.  
  
Negan took a step or too back, alarmed. Something was seriously off with the archer.  
  
Before he had the time to think on it, the man was on him like the wild little thing he was. Good thing he wasn´t quite as weak as he´d tried to get the other man to think he was.  
  
After a bit of a struggle, he managed to wrestle Daryl onto his back, but not without damaging him a little during the process.  
  
“Not at your best, my ass”, the man blurted, sounding annoyed. He was holding his side, where Negan had managed to slice him with the knife after having stolen it from him.  
  
Negan took a more comfortable position, minding the injured man under him – and his own, profusely bleeding leg, courtesy of one Daryl Dixon.  
  
“I learn from the best”, he said, after getting his breathing under control again. “Our dear boy Rick has this funny way of winning his battles by lying and deceiving his opponents. A bit annoying really, but I do admire him for that. And what do you know-“ he tapped Daryl´s nose with the handle of the now bloody knife, “it does work. Should have known it would, after all, I fell for it too bef-“  
  
Daryl´s other hand moved to strike at his throat but he caught it just in time and the knife the archer had kept hidden bit in to the flesh of his hand.  
  
“Nice try, tiger”, he huffed. “But going for my already scarred throat like that was just rude.”  
  
“Wasn´t aiming for your throat”, Daryl said, easing his hold on the knife, enough so, that Negan was able to wrench it off his hand toss it on the floor. “It doesn´t really matter anyhow. At this point, one cut is all that it takes, and I cut you twice. Guess who _I´m _parroting?”__  
  
It was annoying when his own oh-so-brilliant ideas were used against him.  
  
The thing is, he found it hard to believe it even was true. He looked Daryl in the eyes, trying to find that something that would tell him the archer hadn´t actually done it. Hadn´t used the blood of the biters on the blades of his knives. The man under him didn´t struggle or try to go for his knives. No. He just lay there, looking right back at him, like it was the most comfortable place he could possibly be. Which was a lot to say, considering the blood on the floor was as much his as it was Negan’s.  
  
“If I got it then you got it too”, he finally said.  
  
Daryl, this new, eerily calm Daryl, just smiled.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Negan wanted to ask why, but the word wouldn´t come out of his mouth. He was going to die. Either from blood loss or the biter fever, but come dawn he was finally going to be dead.  
  
But so was Daryl.  
  
He stood up and moved to sit against the wall. His leg hurt, so did his hand, but that really didn´t matter in the big picture now, did it?  
  
Daryl didn´t move for a while, just lay there panting and bleeding and generally dying, but when he finally did move, he didn´t go for the door like Negan had assumed. Instead, he took the steps needed to get to Negan himself and then he sat beside him.  
  
“Arat is dead”, he said.  
  
The fact that he felt the need to say it meant he either had something to do with it or he did the deed himself.  
  
“How did she go?”  
  
“Was executed. Behind Rick´s back. Some others too.”  
  
Figures. Poor Rick though, Negan had almost wanted the man to succeed.  
  
“She was a good girl.”  
  
“She killed a child.”  
  
That didn´t sound right.  
  
“Recently?”  
  
“Nah, back at Simon´s era. Or so they say.”  
  
Ah, well that´s another matter then.  
  
“Revenge then?”  
  
Daryl glanced at him, brows furrowed.  
  
“What do _you_ think?”  
  
Negan shrugged.  
  
“Stupid but I get it.”  
  
Killing Arat didn´t bring the child back to life but killing her must have brought at least some satisfaction to the family and friends left behind. That was one of the good things in this new world. When you wanted someone dead for their crimes, you usually had to do the killing yourself - or had the _right_ to do it. There was no bigger organization or constitution to do it for you anymore.  
  
It was a shame, though. Arat wasn´t someone he´d shed a tear for, but she _had_ been a good, loyal soldier. Not quite like someone Daryl could have been for him, once upon a time, but a good soldier nonetheless.  
  
“Why are you even telling me this?”  
  
Now it was Daryl´s turn to shrug.  
  
“Thought you´d like to know, that´s all.”  
  
Yeah, ‘cause that really cleared things up. In the last five or so minutes Daryl had spoken to him more than he had during the whole time they’d known each other, but nothing of importance. Nothing that actually mattered.  
  
They were going to die and the last conversation they had was so not going to be over some dead bastard either of them hadn´t really even known.  
  
“Rick´s gonna be pissed at you, you know? Not for killing me – I live ‘cause it´s _convenient_ , that much we both know. But the way you did this… that´s not gonna sit well with him. I mean, you could have just shot me through the bars. But did you do it? No. No, you decided to have an intimate little dance off with someone who you _knew_ is bigger _and_ stronger than you. A bit risky move if you ask me. Rick´s gonna be wondering lots of things when this is all over.”  
  
“Is this your way of asking me _why_?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Okay then”, Daryl said. “You really wanna know?”  
  
“Well I did say yes, didn´t I?”  
  
Negan was getting more annoyed by the minute and showed it by jabbing the man´s hurt side with his elbow, making him grunt in pain.  
  
“Ow, fuck, stop it you jerk.”  
  
“Tell me why and I will.”  
  
“’Cause I wanted to be the one to do it and had I not come now, Maggie would have beaten me to it. Your death will hopefully calm things down between them, Rick and Maggie.”  
  
“Yes, but you didn´t have to die to accomplish this.”  
  
“I´m not one for executions, Negan. That´s not me. It needed to be a fight.”  
  
“A fight? With an unarmed man? How righteous of you.”  
  
“Well you didn´t stay _un_ armed now, did you? Look.” Daryl was showing him his hand, the one that had, until recently, been keeping most of his blood inside his body and not on the floor. “This is _my_ blood that you shed, not the Easter Bunny´s.”  
  
“You’re missing my point so far that you ought to be in Mars by now.”  
  
“Whatever. What´s done is done.”  
  
Yeah, it might just as well be. Speaking with Daryl had helped him forget the pain of his wounds, but it didn´t change the fact that he – they – were actually dying here. At this point, their blood was gonna run out long before the biter fever could sink its hands on them.  
  
“I ransacked your room, you know”, Daryl said, after a couple of minutes of surprisingly comfortable silence. “Back at the Sanctuary.”  
  
“You jerk.” There might have been a touch too much affection there, but maybe Daryl hadn´t noticed. “Find anything good?”  
  
“Your booze.”  
  
Of fucking course you did you naughty puppy.  
  
“And this.”  
  
Daryl took something from the pocket of his trousers, grabbed Negan´s not-damaged right hand and put whatever it was that he was speaking of into it. That whatever it was, turned out to be an old, worn piece of paper with writing on it.  
  
“You know where to find us, it says. At least I think that´s what it says. The handwriting´s so fancy I could hardly understand it.”  
  
“That´s what it says”, Negan confirmed, wondering when he´d last even seen the damn thing. At what point had he forgotten he even had it?  
  
“Who is it from?”  
  
“Just some people I met, early on. After Lucille. Before this savior stuff.”  
  
“What happened to them?”  
  
“I actually don´t know. They were leaving for Europe. Going home. I wasn´t ready to leave so I didn´t when they asked me to. Why?”  
  
“Just curious. When we first heard the echoes of your name they were utterings of a monster. Of a man that turned out to be so bad, so evil, that people who had had nothing whatsoever to do with each other, would unite together to fight him and his off. Even now, the very fact that you still live is eating the ground under Ricks feet. But somewhere, behind all that bullshit, you´re just a man who lost his wife after the world ended. A man who met people and killed people and kept on living, just like the rest of us. You may be a bully and a bastard but you´re not a monster. If you were, the rest of us would be too.”  
  
“I don´t know about being a monster”, Negan said, finding odd comfort in the way Daryl was starting to lean against him. “But the man who wrote this _would _probably be a monster in your books. When I first met him and his group, they were debating whether to eat me or not for trying to eat one of their dogs."__  
  
“I´ve had my share of cannibals too”, Daryl mumbled. “The end of the world isn´t for everyone.”  
  
“I´m sure. But that wasn´t the case with them. They were killers long before the shit hit the fan and what seemed like an end to us, was their beginning. They were free.”  
  
“Would _you _like to be free?”__  
  
“I´m going to be. Very soon. Thanks to you.”  
  
“I lied. Before.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah… I didn´t do this for Maggie or Rick or… you know, them.”  
  
Negan turned his head, smelled the forest and the dirt and the rain in Daryl´s hair and if he closed his eyes, he could almost, _almost _picture them sitting somewhere outside. Somewhere that wasn´t here in his stupid, dark bastard of a cell.__  
  
“For who did you do this then?”  
  
Who did you kill us for?  
  
“For you”, was the answer. “And for me.”  
  
“You sure this is worth it?”  
  
“I´m sitting here dying with more of my blood _on _you than _in _me and still, I can say that I´m, at the moment, happier than I´ve been since before the dead even started walking. So yeah, I´d say this is worth it.”____  
  
When he smiled, he looked so young in Negan´s eyes. Young and happy and as ready to be free as he was.  
  
“Who are you?” He asked, wanting to hear it one more time, before it was time to go.  
  
“Daryl.”  



End file.
